Graduate qualifying work

Statement of the Problem

ESP practitioners have a major role in improving the ESP teaching because they not only design the course but they present it as well. In fact, the most significant question to be asked is who should teach ESP and how? What are the problems and challenges that face an ESP teacher and what are the requirements for ESP teacher to improve ESP teaching?
Aims of the Study
ESP is so vast an area that one cannot tackle all its aspects. In choosing the area of ESP practitioner, several aims are to be taken into account. The main objective is to improve the ESP teaching in general and the teacher’s performance particularly. In other words, this study aims to help ESP teacher succeed in their tasks by discussing the role of ESP teacher, how it is different from the teaching of general English and what problems ESP teachers may encounter at their work. The secondary aim of this study is to give the reader a general idea about English for Special purposes. In other words, there are certain issues in ESP that this study aims to address, such as its origins, its developments, and the difference between ESP and GE. Also, the study aims to show the radical change of the status of the teacher since the appearance of ESP. Moreover, by conducting this research in this field, we aim at shedding light on the training tasks that ESP practitioners are asked to devise. Finally, we will suggest some procedures and methods that hopefully will make the ESP teaching process more effective.

Significance of the study

This research will be a great benefit for ESP teachers as it will enable them:
Conduct needs analysis. Solve their problems and challenges during ESP courses. Improvement of the content.

Research questions

Through this work we try to answer the following questions:
What differentiate an ESP teacher from a GE one?
What are the roles of the ESP teacher?
Should an ESP teacher take needs analysis into consideration before to start teaching ESP?
Should an ESP teacher take training courses before teaching?
Hypotheses of the Study
Since ESP is a learner-centered approach, and since its general aim is to meet students‟ needs. The ESP teacher, then, is required to do more than teaching language; thus, his/her role would be definitely unique (Dudley-Evans and ST John 1998). The teacher has to5 “subordinate” his/her role in the classroom to the learning needs of his/her students (Littlewood 1981). This makes the ESP teacher different from the GE one. To answer the above research questions we set the following hypotheses:
ESP practitioner is different from GE teacher.
ESP practitioner has got several roles in addition to teaching.
ESP practitioner should have some training before teaching.
Teachers’ performance in ESP classes influences the development of ESP teaching.
We advance that if ESP teachers design suitable courses depending on needs analysis then teaching ESP will be improved.